Freeze on med courses hailed

PETALING JAYA: While the five-year freeze on new medical programmes have been well-received, the medical fraternity and academicians have described the Govern­ment’s target to achieve a doctor to patient ratio of 1:400 by 2020 “a little too ambitious”.

They felt that the issue-at-hand was on improving the quality of medical practitioners and their posting to rural areas.

Malaysian Medical Association president Dr David Quek said that limiting the number of medical schools would address the glut of hospital housemen.

However, Dr Quek added that the question remains on whether there would be enough medical officers to supervise trainee doctors.

In November, The Star reported that the high number of medical students graduating each year had crowded limited resources, resulting in many housemen not having enough patients for adequate training with supervisors being overworked.

On Wednesday, Minister of Higher Education Datuk Seri Mohd Khaled Nordin announced a five-year freeze on new medical courses at institutions of higher learning, which took effect on May 1.

International Medical University president Tan Sri Abu Bakar Suleiman described the doctor-patient ratio of 1:400 as a very gross measure used for planning.

“We should be able to meet the needs for the country in terms of numbers.

“The difficulty will be the distribution issue, as doctors only want to work in urban areas, which already have a lot of doctors compared to rural areas,” he said.

Meanwhile, Health Minister Datuk Seri Liow Tiong Lai has given the assurance that there are enough doctors to serve patients in the country despite the freeze.

He said the 33 existing institutions which offered medical courses had yet to reach full capacity.

“Some of them only have 10 to 50 students while some have fewer than 100 students.

“They still have the capacity to increase the number of students,” Liow told reporters after opening HSC Medical Centre here yesterday.

However, he admitted that the distribution of doctors throughout the country was not even.

“We need to send more doctors to rural areas, Sabah and Sarawak to serve the under-privileged,” he added.